Women's Studies in Communication Volume 27, Number 2, Summer 2004 Mediating a Movement, Authorizing Discourse: Kate Millett, Sexual Politics, and Feminism's Second Wave Kristan Poirot Mass media's relationship with feminism has long been of interest to feminist rhetorical scholars. In this essay, i examine the media's relationship with the second wave of feminism in terms of the outing of Kate Millett and the popular reception of her book, Sexual Politics. Rather than separating the movement's reception of Millett and the popular media reception, I explore how both intersected and culminated in disciplinary processes of authority and authorization. 1 he summer of 1970 proved to be a pivotal moment for feminism's second wave. Although the August 26'*' Women's Strike for Equality was arguably the most notable event of the summer of 1970, a close second may be the August release of Kate Millett's Sexual Politics. Of course, neither Sexual Politics nor the Strike for Equality mark the beginning of fruitful feminist activity during the second wave—one could easily tum to the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, the break away from New Left groups in the early 1960s, the formation of NOW in 1966, etc. for such germinal events—however, as Bonnie J. Dow (1999) notes, in terms of the development of feminism's public identity via media attention, 1970 marks an important moment. Indeed, the media had begun to pay more attention to the movement in the early part of 1970,' and in terms of greatest media attention, the summer of 1970 is the most remarkable. The Women's Strike for Equality placed women's liberation on the front page of the New York Times for the first time, as well as marked the first event to be covered by all three television news networks of the time (Dow, 1999). Not so silently behind this coverage, however, was Kate Millett with her new book. Sexual Politics. On the shelves by August of 1970, Sexual Politics was considered to be the first book-length exposition of second wave radical feminist theory, and as such it received substantial attention within the mainstream press. Kristan Poirot is an assistant professor at the tjniversity of South Carolina. She wishes to thank Bonnie Dow, Lesli Pace, Kenneth Rufo, Ben Bates, Suzanne Daughton, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful contributions to this project. Different versions of this essay were presented at 2003 Western States Communication Association Convention, Salt Lake City, UT, and were a part of a Ph.D. Dissertation at the University of Georgia.